it's all about the story, possums…

Heroic Narrative

It’s hard to believe now, but women learning the classics was a genuine threat to male power. Against this long background of misogyny and fear, it is surprising, but not astonishing, that the first English translation of the Odyssey by a woman has only now come out. – Annalisa Quinn, NPR. More:

We are raised on a Hollywood diet that argues that the grim, determined, anti-authority male hero or anti-hero who neglects his family and/or is terrible to the few women in his life is a strong/complex male character. Hollywood prioritizes male-centric hero’s-journey action fantasies, war movies, mob dramas and angsty-white-guy morality tales as a matter of course. – Scott Mendelson, Forbes. More:

Russian Rapper, Oxxxymiron, dedicated an entire verse to Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology study The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The book sold out immediately on Ozon, one of Russia’s biggest online stores. – Sasha Raspopina, The Calvert Journal. More:

I love this idea that you’ve got a sword in one hand and a baby on your hip. You had to keep up with the men because there’s no room on a ship for ornaments—but we only know about the ones they caught. There may have been scores of pirate women who lived and died that we just don’t know about. — Laura Sook Duncombe with Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian. (Thanks to Lulu Jemimah) Read more:

Nancy Wake, a New Zealander known during World War II as the “White Mouse,” was active in the French Resistance and escaped the Nazis multiple times. She was on the Gestapo’s most wanted list by 1943, eventually becoming the virtual leader of 7,000 French Resistance fighters. – List by Fran Wilde, Paste Magazine. Read More:

The King Arthur legend has multiple elements, among them a love story involving the king, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot. This version incorporated fantasy, swords, sorcery, and FX, but didn’t bother with romance or significant female characters. – Tom Brueggemann, IndieWire. Read More: